The View's Meghan McCain sits quietly as MSNBC's Morning Joe shreds GOP inaction on Trump's abuses

"The View" co-host Joy Behar called on Republicans to speak out against President Donald Trump's cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin -- and noticed that peeved her conservative colleague Meghan McCain.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski appeared Tuesday morning on the ABC show, and Behar changed the subject from Brzezinski's new book to Russia.

"I'm talking about Trump talking to Putin for 90 minutes on the phone," Behar said. "He said he smiled. Was he face-timing him? It's on the phone, how does he know he smiled? He goes on television and says he discussed nothing about Russian interference with him, and they let him get away with that."

Scarborough asked who she meant, and Behar said congressional Republicans -- if not necessarily the "Morning Joe" host and her conservative co-host.

"We have got to call these people out every day, we have got to step up," Behar said. "I know Meghan doesn't like when I say the Republican Party, and I don't mean you or you. I'm talking about the leadership."

Scarborough agreed, and said Republicans had not challenged blatant law-breaking by Trump administration officials.

"Over the past week they've allowed (Attorney General William) Barr to lie under oath, commit perjury, which, by the way, is why we voted to impeach Bill Clinton, because he committed perjury in a grand jury," Scarborough said. "We have that, we have them ignoring the statute and Treasury to turn over the taxes. By the way, this isn't a constitutional crisis. this is a violation of law."

Host Whoopi Goldberg said she was somewhat relieved to hear Scarborough agreed with her assessment of the situation.

"So I'm not crazy," she said. "This is against the law. Steve Mnuchin, they're coming for you, they can come for you. Honey, he's going to jail or getting released from his job."

Scarborough said Democrats were the only ones who appeared to be willing to challenge Trump's assault on the rule of law.

"Unfortunately, in 2019, the Democratic Party is the only party in America left to defend the rule of law in Washington, D.C.," he said. "That's strange for me."